Hillary Kanter - Dead Men Are Easy To Love (13 page)

“Nevertheless, it is his real name. He is the direct descendant of the original Vlad Dracul, born in the year 1431. He looks good for his age, no?

“That can’t be. I don’t believe you.” Ariel pushed away from the pillar, stepping out of Rion’s reach. “You expect me to believe you are
vampires
? Have you gone mad? There are no such things!”

“Oh, there aren’t? I wasn’t going to do this, but I see I have no choice.”

In the confines of the cellar, surrounded by dusty wine bottles, Rion transformed himself into a bat. Leathery wings flapped at the air. Then, just as quickly, he took the form of a man again.

“You put a hallucinogen in my drink, didn’t you?” she said.

“No, I did not. It was a strong sedative, same as I slipped your fiancé. A little something to, let’s just say,
settle you down
.” He moved toward her, and she backed toward the door. She stumbled and tripped, thudding onto something wooden and hard-edged—his casket.

“Help,” she yelled in horror. “Somebody
help
me!”

Rion told her that no one could hear her, that these walls and doors were too thick. Then he grabbed hold of her again. “I cannot let you marry Dalv. Do you know what happens if he marries you? He becomes a mortal. A
real
man. And if that happens, he can never be one of us again. There are far too few of us as it is. I can stop him from becoming mortal, of course, but there is only
one
way.
You
have to die!”

Ariel yelled again, desperately shoving at this creature before her.

Bearing his terrible fangs, Rion fell back. “What do you have in your pocket?” he hissed. His eyes angled downward. There on his jeans, close to his groin, the imprint of a crucifix smoldered.

“Oh, you mean this? I forgot all about it.” She held up the crucifix given to her by Yuri, and pressed it to his forehead where it sizzled.

“You bitch!” he shrieked. “You little
bitch
. I’ll make you pay for this.”

Before he could do anything else, I emerged from the stairs behind him. “No you won’t, Brother.”

“Dalv?”

The drug had worn off, dissipating quickly in my vampire blood, and I eyed him now with distrust. “What do you think you are doing?”

He scowled. “What any brother would do if his own flesh and blood were deserting him. Actually, your bride-to-be and I were just having a little ‘get acquainted’ chat.”

“Not exactly,” Ariel said. “Unless you call Rion trying to kill me getting acquainted.”

“Brother, she is not worth leaving your whole world behind for,” Rion said, narrowing his eyes.

“He told me everything,” Ariel said. “And I don’t care, Dalv. I love you. I want us to spend the rest of our lives together.”

“Ariel, I was going to tell you myself. I swear I was. Tonight. Or tomorrow, at the latest. I just didn’t know how.”

“Dalv, she cannot take you from me,” Rion said. “Listen to me, your older brother.”

“You’re only older by six minutes,” I shot back. “So shut the hell up!”

“She has to die. Either you do it … or
I
will.”

“Oh, give it up, Rion. We’re leaving right now, and if you try to follow us or do anything to harm her, you’ll be sorrier than I can say.”

Pitiful Rion followed us the whole way out, through a secret door in the cellar to the street, pleading with me not to go, not to marry her.

The snow was blowing harder now. As we neared the car, Ariel’s eyes widened. Once more, Rion had turned into a bat. This time, though, it was no
ordinary
bat trick. His wingspan stretched twenty feet, and on those great black pinions he swooped down. With sharp talons, he grasped hold of my dear lady by the coat collar and began to carry her off.

“Dalv!”

Her pleading stare threw me into action. I morphed into a bat of equal size and flew at my brother in a frenzy, forcing him to drop his prey the short distance to the ground. She peered up at our giant black wings that beat against the falling white snow, then started screaming … and screaming … and screaming …

Suddenly, she was gone.

Gone, just like that.

***

“Ariel, Ariel? Can you hear me?” A woman in white was shaking me gently by the shoulder and holding smelling salts under my nose. I was back in my doctor’s office in New York City. Transylvania, Dalv, and Rion were nowhere to be seen.

I was in a panic. Totally confused.

“What did you do to me? What’s going on,” I yelled.

“You fainted while we were taking your blood. You’ve been out for at least two minutes,” the nurse said, checking my blood pressure. “Welcome back. But don’t get up just yet.”

Once she was finished, I hurried to the front desk to pay. I heard a man behind me address the receptionist.

“Excuse me,” he said. “I’m here to pick up those lab samples.”

“Oh, hi, Eric. Here they are.” She pulled out a wooden case filled with numerous vials of blood.

I turned slowly, and my jaw dropped.

The man wearing a white lab jacket stared straight into my eyes. He wore the smiling face of Dalv Lucard.

THE THERAPY CHRONICLES:

Part One

Back in the present, where is Mr. Perfect? Mr. Perfect. Mr. Perfect.

Mr. Perfect Mr. Perfect. Mr. Perfect.

Mr. Perfect. Mr. Perfect. Mr. Perfect. Mr. Perfect?

“
All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.”

–Stephen King, in
The Shining

But seriously, it’s all about Mr. Perfect. My crush seems to grow stronger all the time. Sometimes I still think about flinging myself off the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge when I think about my “real” love life, in the present. Unavailable men are all I seem to meet. If I’m attracted, it’s certain they will be married, gay, or out of their minds. Plain and not-so-simple, I’m attracting men, but not the
right
ones. I can’t tell Mr. Perfect that the only love I’m experiencing these days that is, well…reciprocal, is in the past—with dead men. He’d have those guys in the little white coats deliver me to the loony bin.

I’m not even sure myself that I don’t belong there. I do question my sanity. Mum is the word, for at least the foreseeable future.

Today, I told Mr. Perfect that I loved him.

He sat back in his chair with arms folded across his chest and said,” Ariel, now you
do
know that your feelings for me are based on a fantasy, don’t you? You
do
know you don’t
really
know me,
right?
The reason is, I don’t bring anything about myself into this room, because I’m not here to talk about
me,
right? I’m here to talk about
you
, okay? So you couldn’t really know me, alright? So that means you can’t possibly
really
love me, you understand?” He paused with raised eyebrows, awaiting my response.

Matter-of-factly, I said, “Nope. I love you.”

He just stared at me for the longest time, then changed the subject. “Ariel, I know how much you want to find real love. Isn’t there anybody out there that maybe you’ve dated but you didn’t really give them a chance? You seem to break things off pretty quickly, you know? Have you ever thought maybe you judge men too fast?”

“Let’s see. Mr. Sociopath—as I called him during the precipitating event—I actually judged
him
too slow. And Dr. Ross, the crazy shrink I dated. And the matchmaking site guy, who showed up on a first date with an HIV negative report. There was also a married man or two that I’d concluded were a bad idea. Do I judge men too fast? No, not really,” I responded.

“Has it ever occurred to you that the reason you are attracted to unavailable men is that it’s ‘safe’? And that if you break it off first, then they won’t have a chance to break your heart?”

That posed an interesting question. More interesting still, in regards to the men I was meeting on my strange time-travels. Talk about unavailable men. Far be it from me to be sure of anything at this point, but I don’t think you can
get
more unavailable than
dead.
Could there be a connection?

Our hour was up before I had a chance to respond.

Chapter Seven

FRANKLY, MY DEAR …

December 15. A cold, blustery night descended on present day New York City. I was preparing for one of my rare dates with a man— and this time not a
dead one
. For one reason or another, I was not exactly optimistic about it. The dead were far more interesting to me right now.

Ron and I had first met while I was alone on a ski trip to Utah late last year. We stayed in touch via emails and phone calls, and he promised to call me the next time he was in New York. Though I knew he was quite a bit older than me, it did not matter since he had gorgeous blue eyes and a full head of lovely salt-and-pepper hair.

The doorbell rang.

Here goes nothing, I thought. I waited a moment before answering. On the second ring, I opened it. Geez, Ron looked older and heavier than I remembered. He had seemed so much more attractive on the snowy slopes, but I suppose bulky ski clothes and hats
do
have a tendency to hide things like potbellies and bald heads. One time on the phone, I had asked rather tentatively how old he was. He said sixty-two. Now I had my doubts that he had told the truth.

Great. Likely another date starting out on a dishonest foot. So much for a man sweeping me off my feet with that old Hollywood charm. But what was I going to do? I figured everybody’s got to eat, right? At least I would get dinner out of a date that seemed headed for disaster.

As we walked out onto the street, I practically ran straight into Rob, the neighboring lawyer upstairs. He gave me a strange look as I passed, holding on to Ron’s arm. Oh, well. I pulled my coat collar up for protection against the howling wind, thinking that dating these days was about as appetizing as swallowing broken glass. I realized, however, I was willing to subject myself to occasional torture, if for no other reason than to prove to myself, my friends,
and
my mother that I was still in the game.

Ron had picked a nice Italian restaurant, at least. As we finished dinner an hour and a half later and Don got ready to pay, his cell phone started ringing. Call me tacky, but as walked to the outside of the restaurant to answer it, he left his wallet on the table—and my curiosity got the better of me

One quick peek at his license. Just to know for sure.

And I was right. That SOB had lied.

He was seventy-two!

Snapping the wallet shut, I watched him thread his way back through the tables. He flashed me a smile and slipped back into his seat, at which point I started obsessing about his teeth. The longer he talked, the weirder they looked. They were white and impossibly straight.

I suspected dentures.

Oh God. That gave me visions of rolling over in the morning and seeing a pearly vision at the bottom of a glass on the nightstand. Scary thought. Can a person even kiss if they have dentures? Was I going to have to offer him a candied apple or a Sugar Daddy to find out if they were real or not?

After dinner, we planned to see
Gone with the Wind
, one of my all-time favorite movies. This was a special 70th anniversary screening of the film’s premiere in Atlanta. A movie seemed like a good idea, considering Ron was a far better skier than conversationalist. I actually preferred
not
hearing him talk.

I suspected illiteracy. “We’ll both have the pasgetti,” he had told the waiter at dinner.

I had thought he was joking at first, pronouncing “spaghetti” in such an infantile manner, but there was no hint of humor in his voice or expression. Later, the waiter asked if he wanted any dessert. “We ain’t got any room left, I don’t think. But I’ll let youse guys know if we change our minds.”
Uh, hello. I am sitting right here. I do not recall having been asked.

Did this date of mine have Mafia connections? How had I never before noticed his anemic language skills? Maybe because he had never ordered “pasgetti” in front of me. Maybe because he had never drunk a whole bottle of wine in my presence. Or, more likely, I had been in denial in Utah, due to my desire for some male company.

Anything was possible.

Seated in the theater, I watched Clark Gable saunter onto the big-screen. Now
there
was a man. He was larger than life, tall, dark, handsome, and unmistakably virile. Even hunks such as Brad Pitt and George Clooney did not quite measure up to old Clark. He had something
beyond
sex appeal. For the life of me, I’ve always wondered why, in the film, Scarlett did not drop effeminate Ashley Wilkes like a hot potato the moment she laid eyes on Rhett.

 Glancing at my date with his dentures and potbelly, I sighed.

Afterward, it was a short walk back to my apartment. Sure, I had enjoyed the movie, but there was no way I was inviting Ron in. I gave him a quick hug, then yawned the biggest yawn I could muster. “Thank you for a nice time,” I said.

“I’m in town one more day. Would you like to go to dinner again tomorrow night?”

“Uh, thanks, but … I have to work on … on a piece I’m writing.”

When he tried to kiss me on the lips, I offered my cheek.

Once he was gone, I turned and opened the door, but something felt off-kilter. The hallway was dark. I fumbled along the wall, finding nothing but cold empty space where I would normally touch the light switch. Was this my apartment? No, I should have reached the glass end table by the couch by now.